Writing a memoir is not for the faint of heart. Have you ever been so angry that you can’t think straight, and you just start swearing at your computer screen? I have. When I first started writing a memoir, I had something to prove. I wanted anyone and everyone to know just how badly I had been treated in my first marriage. I was very angry. And rightly so, but what I have learned is that angry writing isn’t always helpful writing. As a reader, when you read something, you don’t want the words to be yelling at you. A while back I heard someone say: you will know when you are ready to share your story with the world when you don’t have something to prove. It’s the idea that you are in a good place with something when you no longer have to prove it. There have been…
Unless you are bald, the hair on your head is with you everywhere. It is a defining feature. I have changed my hair many times. I’ve had orange, red, black, brown, blonde, platinum…to name a few. For the past maybe eight or so years, I’ve had short hair, usually in a pixie cut. After a bad experience at a salon, I declared: I’m growing my hair out. Then another moment came—where I was fed up with things in my life—and I decided: Ok, I am done with blonde, I am dying my hair brown. This was in an attempt to go back to my natural dark blonde roots. Oddly enough, four days after changing my hair I quit my job. Clearly there was unrest happening in me that I didn’t even know about fully, and it manifested itself… in my hair choice. I have gone through many different times…
I read a post on Medium from a guy, who said writing comes easy to him. He just sits down and writes. Boom. Done. It’s been like that since he was 10 years old. He just writes like he talks. While writing like you talk can be good advice in some cases (like a blog), and that is super great, for him…to me, that was super annoying! Do you remember that star athlete in high school who could do any sport and succeed at it, even if it was the first time they tried it? It was hard not to be jealous of them (unless that was you), but we all know jealousy gets you nowhere…. Or what about those kids who thought they were the greatest at something, but really weren’t self-aware enough to know where their skill level actually was at? Writing, at least lately, has not been easy for…